Ford debuts its new "smart vehicle, smart world" at CES in Las Vegas. Alyssa Julya Smith met up with Sherif Marakby, Vice President of Autonomous Vehicles & EV at Ford, to discuss when the company will be hitting the road with its self-driving cars.
Earlier this year Ford teamed up with Domino's to deliver pizza to Michigan customers in driverless cars. Marakby discusses what went into making that experiment a successful one. Everything from which side of the car the touchpad should be on, to whether or not to integrate voice.
Plus, what is the future of smart cities and what are the challenges? Marakby says the biggest challenge in autonomous driving is parking. Most cities don't have enough curb accommodations for a fleet of self-driving cars to succeed. He said that Ford will be testing a fleet of self-driving cars in a new city, to be announced later this year.
Wall Street is shaky Thursday as investors consider both the upsides and downsides of the latest signals that the U.S. economy remains in much better shape than feared.
Threatened by possible shortages of lithium for electric car batteries, automakers are racing to lock in supplies of the once-obscure “white gold” in a politically and environmentally fraught competition from China to Nevada to Chile.
The number of different electronic cigarette devices sold in the U.S. has nearly tripled to over 9,000 since 2020, driven almost entirely by a wave of unauthorized disposable vapes from China, according to tightly controlled sales data obtained by The Associated Press.
In Wednesday's business headlines, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is due in court to defend the company's takeover of Activision Blizzard and United Airlines is under fire over its recent cancellations with CEO Scott Kirby blaming the FAA for the disruptions. Meanwhile, a judge approved Overstock's purchase of Bed Bath & Beyond assets.
